What Does a Content Marketer Really Do? — Content Marketing 101

You hear it all the time. “Content marketing is king. Content marketing is the new SEO. Content marketing is the only marketing.” It might be hyperbole, but content marketing is here to stay.

It pays to know what content marketers do; how they fit into a web presence management team. What keeps them up at night?

A content marketer’s job is so much more than a periodic blog post with a flashy title. A content marketer is responsible for an editorial calendar that can include case studies, research, tweets, blogs, videos, white papers, checklists, infographics, emails, letters, webinars, presentation, web copy, and plenty of other creative forms of communication.

All of those forms of communication are sent across different channels and platforms like organic search, email, Twitter, Youtube, SlideShare, StumbleUpon, Facebook, industry publications, and more.

Beyond that, content marketers have to orient their content towards different audiences at different points in their progression towards making a purchase. They have to work with the organic and paid teams to ensure their content gets found by the right people.

Taken all together, this is enough to keep a normal person up at night.

The job requires in depth knowledge of their audience’s behaviors. What do they care about? How do they search for content? What makes them click to open an article? And most importantly, will they find value in what I write?

After answering these questions and writing the content, content marketers still have to be able to measure how well the content performs, and plan ways to iterate and improve. This means tracking clicks, bounces, social shares, lead gen metrics and sales metrics at each touchpoint.

And in the end, like digital marketers of all stripes, the number one thing a content marketer looks for is ROI. Is the content helping to acquire more customers and convert them? If a content marketer can answer this question with a “yes,” they’re doing it right. They’re getting clicks from the right users, and demonstrating how relevant content can acquire and advance potential customers towards a sale.